I have been a member of Entrepreneurs’ Organisation (EO) for five years. There is a regular theme at any large international gathering (see you in EO Cape Town?) about the role of an entrepreneur. The saying is that “you should work on your business not in your business”. The successful scale entrepreneurs are those that … Read more
Warren Buffett gave a talk to a group of MBA students at the University of Florida in 2007. The video is at the bottom of this post (on the blog). He starts with an interesting question. He says [2:30] “Think for a moment that I granted you the right to buy 10% of the future … Read more
A couple of years ago I had some discussions with Solera Capital about taking on a role in Europe leading the change at a company called Audatex, an insurance claims adjustment business. Solera explained their simple, three part philosophy that they apply to managment of their acquired companies: 30/30 80/20 90/10 30/30 – Every manager … Read more
I was on the Air Europa flight back from Madrid sat with JC Duarte and Manuel Vidal-Quadras. At a certain point we watched as JC pulled up an impressive iPhone application that allows him to track his time. This led to a discussion about how to be effective with time. I feel that I am … Read more
I listened to a podcast from Barry Nalebuff of Yale University and founder of drinks brand Honest Tea (sold 40% to Coke for $43Min 2008; apparently Barrack Obama’s favourite drink is “Black Forest Berry”) as I sat on British Airways flight BA10 from Sydney to Bangkok. He spoke compellingly of why a decision to be … Read more
I listened to Warren Rustand speak on Leadership to the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia last week. Warren is a man who has fit the experiences of several lifetimes into his own – he has been in public service, in academia, involved in not-for-profits and has been chairman or CEO of 17 organisations. … Read more
I was at the Sydney Cricket Ground yesterday and sat in the crowd with my friend Maurice. We watched Ricky Ponting and his Australia team score 267 runs against the Pakistan team on an overcast but warm day – perfect temperature for sitting outside. Maurice shared with me three pearls of wisdom that had been … Read more
Should we focus on the ends to improve the means or focus on the means to improve the ends? On Monday I spent a couple of hours at IESE in a research seminar where Harvard Professor Julie Battiliana presented her research on professional and organisational identity in two Bolivian commercial microfinance institutions. BancoSol and Banco … Read more
I came across the concept of Personal Branding via the blog of Dan Schwabel about 6 months ago and have been a regular reader of his blog. Some ideas have been percolating up through my unconsciousness and drifted into consciousness during a day skiing with my friend Javi. (Thanks to Ana, Piero and friends for … Read more
Most days are much the same. However, great changes in our world don’t come from normal days – they are driven by the extreme events, the outliers. Something like 70% of all the drops in the US stock exchanges are due to 6 particular days of extreme share price drops. The course of my own … Read more